Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Music can help recover damaged brain function by activating parts of the brain that are nearby—Oliver Sacks

If, indeed God moves us to express that within us which is divine, then poetry is the language of the heart and music is the language of the soul—Nina Munteanu

We are creatures of rhythm; circadian, diurnal, seasonal. Let’s face it; our environment—light especially—affects our behavior, psychologically, physiologically and even socially. For instance, mood-altering chemicals generated in the pineal gland in our brain, are partially affected by the light received from our retina. In an earlier post, entitled “the Mozart Effect: The Power of Music” I discussed how music can heal the body, strengthen the mind and unlock the creative spirit. For instance, music with a pulse of about sixty beats per minute can shift consciousness from the beta wave (ordinary consciousness at 14-20 Hz) toward the alpha range (heightened awareness at 8-13 Hz), enhancing alertness and general well-being.

Our world is composed of energy, light, sound and matter, all expressed at different frequencies.

The study of cymatics, coined by Hans Jenny from the Greek word kyma (wave), explores how sound affects gases, liquids, plasmas and solids and how vibrations, in the broad sense, generate and influence patterns, shapes and moving processes. When sound travels through non-solids it moves in longitudinal waves called compression waves. In matter, the medium is displaced by sound waves, causing it to oscillate at a frequency relative to the sound, and visible patterns emerge.

Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo Galilei, Robert Hooke, and Ernst Chladni investigated this phenomenon in the 1400s, 1500s, 1700s, and 1800s, respectively. In 1967, Hans Jenny, a Swiss doctor, artist, and researcher, published Kymatik-Wellen und Schwingungen mit ihrer Struktur und Dynamik/ Cymatics (The Structure and Dynamics of Waves and Vibrations). Like Chladni two hundred years earlier, Jenny showed what happened when one took various materials like sand, spores, iron filings, water, and viscous substances, and placed them on vibrating metal plates and membranes. What then appeared were shapes and motion-patterns which varied from the nearly perfectly ordered and stationary to those that were turbulently developing, organic, and constantly in motion.

Using crystal oscillators and his invention called a “tonoscope” to set plates and membranes vibrating, Jenny controlled frequency and amplitude/volume to demonstrate that simple frequencies and songs could rearrange the essential molecular structure of water and other materials.

Jenny was convinced that biological evolution was a result of vibrations, and that their nature determined the ultimate outcome. He speculated that every cell has its own frequency and that a number of cells with the same frequency create a new frequency which is harmonious with the original, which in its turn possibly formed an organ that also created a new frequency in harmony with the two preceding ones. Jenny was saying that the key to understanding how we can heal the body with the help of tones lies in our understanding of how different frequencies influence genes, cells and various structures in the body.

Boldly extended his tonoscope research into voice and language, Jenny discovered that when the vowels of ancient Hebrew and Sanskrit were pronounced, the sand took the shape of the written symbols for these vowels, while modern languages didn’t generate the same result. This has led spiritual philosophers to ponder if “sacred languages” (including Tibetan and Egyptian) have the power to influence and transform physical reality, to create things through their inherent power, or through the recitation or singing of sacred texts, to heal a person who has gone "out of tune"?

Cymatics photographer and author Alexander Lauterwasser showed that:

• Higher frequencies created more intricate and complex patterns

• Typical line types were radial and spherical or elliptical lines that repeated the outer form of the perimeter

• When asymmetrical shapes developed at certain frequencies, symmetrical shapes always formed in between

In a controversial movie called “Water”, Rustum Roy, professor at the State University of Pennsylvania and Member of the International Academy of Sciences, suggested that water has “memory”, based on the structure it takes on as a result of electromagnetic fields and various frequencies to which it is exposed (more on this in a later post—I promise!).

I’m a practicing aquatic scientist and this is what I find fascinating: noting that the human brain is 75% water, it is not surprising that we can be affected by the shape and form of water itself—and, in turn, may shape water with our minds. This is in itself a startling admission and opens up a myriad of controversial topics, which many scientists find hard to reconcile and refuse to investigate, let alone entertain. And, yes, I am edging into the area of metaphysics, of “science fiction”, of “fanciful thinking”. A place populated by heretics who do “questionable science”, those rogue mavericks who dare step outside the realm of traditional science to imagine, to dare ask the unaskable, to dare pursue a truth using unconventional means.

Here’s my point: water is important to us in ways science can’t even begin to explain. Because science can’t yet explain it, should we abandon the potential and its investigation? All good science was once perceived as magic before it was understood.

Let me take it one step further:

I posit that our entire bodies are sending and receiving vibrations at different frequencies with our environment, other people, other animals around us, inanimate objects, even the seemingly ‘empty’ space. Our intimate relationship with frequency and waves has permeated our culture more than you may realize, including the metaphors we have seamlessly adopted in our common language: terms like “bad vibes”, "making waves", “you can feel the tension”, and “you could cut the air in here with a knife”.

If you think this is all too weird, consider the weirdness of quantum mechanics, which shows us that not only is “solid” matter made up mostly of energy and “empty” space but what makes a solid a chair vs. you sitting on it is the vibration of its energy. Quantum science has demonstrated that light and matter are made of both particles and waves (New Scientist, May 6, 2010) and can exist in two simultaneous states. Let’s consider, for instance, “entanglement” (quantum non-local connection), the notion that particles can be linked in such a way that changing the quantum state of one instantaneously affects the other, even if they are light years apart. And what does it mean when solid flows, ghost-like, through itself under certain conditions? Or parallel universes created by splitting realities? (You’ll have to check out my upcoming book, “The Last Summoner” for a unique take on this popular notion).

Nobel prize-winning physicist Richard Feyman says of the paradoxes presented by quantum mechanics, “the ‘paradox’ is only a conflict between reality and your feeling of what reality ought to be.”

Nina Munteanu is an
ecologist and internationally published author of novels, short stories and
essays. She coaches writers and teaches writing at George Brown College and the
University of Toronto. For more about Nina’s coaching & workshops visit www.ninamunteanu.me. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for more about her writing.

13 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Swiss Creme is a liquid, provides you with energy resulting in your weird an wonderful thoughts...

The Bene Gesserit in Frank Herbert's Dune series used "voice" to control people. Paul Atreides used amplified "voice" to destroy. Joshua, using marching and trumpets is said to have destroyed the walls of Jericho.

Vibrations can be very powerful indeed.

Please note that light, sound are expressions of energy. The Universe is composed of energy. e=mc*C (squared).The frequency determines our perception of the energy.

I'm not to sure about frequencies changing the essential molecular structure of water. H2O molecules are constatly vibrating. Add energy, they vibrate faster eventually become steam, take away energy, they vibrate slower and turn to ice. It remains H20 - Water.

Interesting observation about ancient languages versus the modern languages. The ancient languages were simpler and often more lyrical. English, which merely absorbs everything in its path, has ceased to be lyrical in our day to day use. Thankfully, when paired with well crafted frequencies, it can become musical.

While resonance has been proven to be very destructive (think of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge incident), it is easily thwarted by counter vibrations and that different materials / substances respond differently. Thankfully, the human body is a jumble of pieces that only large amounts of energy do immediate harm. However, one could postulate that overtime, low energy vibrations cause tiny amounts of damage resulting in degraded functions ... or is it just old age :)

FASCINATING article, and we must be on the same *wavelength* which of course is also very much vibration, because in the last few weeks--before that article about 'san francisco' (you kindly pointed your readers to). I had been thinking of doing a blog entry titled 'The Language of Music'.

Recently at a music Jazz forum, I have become involved in a controversial discussion thread titled 'Musicians dieing from drugs', and I suddenly realized as I got into this that now I couldn't do my proposed article without going into this more negative territory.

It seems very odd for example how many musicians choose self-destruction even though they do what they love to do--music. What does this mean? What does it say about our culture that artists feel the ways they do even though playing music.

Of course I have had to bring in about the myth of mental illness, and the suppression of entheogenic healing, and this has caused members there to appear and attack my views whilst promoting the accepted mode of operation of this patriarchal culture.

But I know from even recreational psychedelic experience the DEPTHS of music, and how it can 'wave' you. For if we understand this 'quantum paradox' 'sub-atomic' world as pertaining to the so-called 'macro atomic' world, then we are simulataneously waveparticle or particle wave. A dynamic continuum which under some circumstances like oppressive culture which itemises us into individual productive little consumers and makes us feel a particle in a big unfeeling machine, in other more joyous circumstances we can feel wavelike and expansive and vibratory, and music will act as the facilitator and carry us into multidimensional reality where waves meet waves meet waves in a merry *awe~some* dance of consciousness and energy.Ecstasy~~~

Actually, Limberger's comment is erroneous... Every engineer worth their salt knows that the Tacoma brigde incident was due to the length of the bridge. Mathematical investigations later found that the bridge was the correct length to match that frequency (of the undulations) which was why it happened. What came out of that was that engineers were required to check the math on their structures to avoid matching naturally occuring frequencies and creating repeat incidents.

I'm an engineer, it's part of the history we learn up here in Canada...

The length on the new bridge would have been calculated to not be the same on purpose!

Muzuzuzus... thank you for your thoughtful comment... yes... wave, particle and wave again... where does the individual begin and end? I particularly like what you said about music here:"music will act as the facilitator and carry us into multidimensional reality where waves meet waves meet waves in a merry *awe~some* dance of consciousness and energy.Ecstasy~~~" ... :)

Yes, good point, Jean-Luc... I can say from my own experience when I was pregnant with my son, that I intuitively steered more toward soft, classisal music... When he was very little he, too, enjoyed it, especially the Celtic music of Enya ... he now listens to hard rock and metal, but every so often likes to listen to more lyrical recursive music from the 80s... like Flock of Seagulls... :)

Ah the pitfalls of posting late at night. Putting two concepts too close together. The paragraph regarding the bridge was (in my mind) two thoughts - 1) Resonance taking down the bridge - as you noted.

The second thought 2) example of how resonance can be thwarted. It wasn't intended to be a suggested remedy for the bridge - Best left to engineers. It was only to higlight that the human body with its variety of material is not as susceptible to resonant destruction. (see Mythbusters episode re: the Brown Note).

Another example that I could have used has to do with coal cars. At one point, using automated loading of railway coal cars, it was discovered that when too many cars with uniform mass were hooked together, they would start to rock, then build up a resonance then derail. To counter the problem they would mix in different sized coal cars to break up any wave that might develop.

Excellent comment, Dar... It begs the question -- what is it in a place, or event, or circumstance that lights that creative spark? Is it a "memory"? Or is it a resonating energy, or resonating frequency?

Oh, and speaking of frequencies of mind, creativity and well-being, I posted an interesting article on "faith" and mind entitled "Author's Retreat...Changing the World With Your Mind...and Faith":http://sfgirl-thealiennextdoor.blogspot.com/2009/02/authors-retreatand-matter-of-faith.html

Aliens are human beings both male and female who lost their emotional body, without an emotional body, one can no longer reincarnate into the physical body here. So all the sci-fi is actually correct. The mental bodied human-aliens are the lost tribe of earth. The levels in which you are awake in your dreams at night, is the level in which you are awake here in the waking dream. So sad 90% of humanity is fully asleep and that is why they love science, the most demonic force on the planet.

About Nina

I'm The Alien Next Door. I'm an ecologist and a published author of several novels, articles and reviews. I teach writing at George Brown College and UofT. I also coach writers. For more on writing (articles and advice) and more information about my coaching, visit me at Nina Munteanu Writing Coach. Visit Nina Munteanu Writer for more about my own writing. My new site The Meaning of Water is devoted to our precious water and brings my interest as an ecologist and limnologist to help understand the meaning and importance of this precious and mysterious element. Inside, you'll find articles that explore what water is and its meaning to this planet and to us as a species and life form.